Description
Pragmatist approaches, such as "praxis" as a perspective on world politics, promise new conceptual and methodological impulses for IR but also require flexibility and problem-orientation beyond mere "application" of established methods. Due to the tensions between established methodological quality criteria and a reflexive view on analysis and theorizing as just another kind of „praxis”, an “agile” methodological practice must take the place of ‘routinized’ research (best) practices. Closely tailored to the object of investigation, such an approach allows for the open-ended reconstruction of discoveries in the “field” while also taking into account mutual interdependences between data collection, methodological approach and basic theoretical assumptions.
This forces us to reflect on the consequences of the reciprocal relationship of "theory" and "practice" for a pragmatist research strategy in IR: How does method structure the research process without (pre-)determining it? How can it nevertheless deliver coherent outputs?
On the basis of our experiences from research into practices of European defense cooperation and the praxis of global order formation, we dialogically discuss variants of pragmatist methodological strategies (i.e. methodological “Praxis”) and their consequences for empirical "field work" and theorizing. In addition to the "operationalization" of different pragmatist approaches, the focus will also be on what kind(s) of theories can result from this and how these in turn relate to the "praxis" of the practitioners themselves.
